[vtsnowedin]

Most ASEAN countries have 2 minimum award wages, one for each- rural & city. Roughly $3-8 a day, with a day being up to 12 working hours.

(That's the competition, just in case anyone forgot)

That was my point but I have to think that the exchange rates are a bit skewed. You would need to look at the family budget for one of these workers and see what he can acquire with his $3-8 a day. We've seen the Chinese factories with dorms for the workers. What quality of life does that afford them? Rent food, clothing laundry, etc. included or paid out of those meager wages?
They are not taking ski trips to Aspen but neither am I.

[vtsnowedin]

SixStrings- I would give you a detailed rebuttal- but for every one word I type, you type one hundred,

The understatement of the week.

[SeaGypsy]

Most ASEAN countries have 2 minimum award wages, one for each- rural & city. Roughly $3-8 a day, with a day being up to 12 working hours.

(That's the competition, just in case anyone forgot)

That was my point but I have to think that the exchange rates are a bit skewed. You would need to look at the family budget for one of these workers and see what he can acquire with his $3-8 a day. We've seen the Chinese factories with dorms for the workers. What quality of life does that afford them? Rent food, clothing laundry, etc. included or paid out of those meager wages?
They are not taking ski trips to Aspen but neither am I.

I earn about $25 AUD & the wife about $15 part time, between us about $75,000 a year Aussie. About $60k $USD. Our cost of living here in Melbourne Australia is cheaper than the village where my wife is from in the Philippines, in all respects apart from housing & transport. Rent here is about 15 times as much. Buying a house here is about 8 times the cost there. But parity electricity, very similar for most foods, except we have far better range here. Fuel is 20% cheaper there & everyone rides scooters, so we don't use much of it there. When it all stacks up we are far better off.

[SeaGypsy]

Just to clarify- my rent in Australia is 12 hours wages a week at my earnings which are about average. In the Philippines my renting relatives work 15 hours a week to pay the rent. So even in the one area we are paying a lot more, in hours worked per rent balance we are still 20%+ better off.

Sent from my HUAWEI Y520-U33 using Tapatalk

[Outcast_Searcher]

:?: What is the minimum wage in Viet Nam? China, India , Indonesia?
Now if a robot that takes no breaks, works three shifts a day, Pays no income or social security taxes, needs no workman's comp or health insurance was worth buying at $10.50 an hour What is it's value at $15.00/hour?
And another thing. The one percent did not steal our wealth. We gave it to them one Starbucks's coffee , one burger with fries, one lap top, one cell phone, one Xbox, one loaded automobile, one gallon of gas etc,at a time.

So in your world, it is impossible to EARN a high salary, one hour, one good (educated) decision or technical labor performance at a time? But a guy flipping burgers, he really EARNS his salary (until replaced by a robot, since McDonald's won't pay $15.00 an hour for flipping burgers ONE HOUR more than they have to -- whatever liberals may "demand" is fair).

So in your world, trading $X for a product is "giving" if one person has earned wealth and the other has not (by implication, given your post).

How quaint.

[SeaGypsy]

Yet again you are projecting into the text Outcast. VT is posing these questions to 6.

[vtsnowedin]

:?: What is the minimum wage in Viet Nam? China, India , Indonesia?
Now if a robot that takes no breaks, works three shifts a day, Pays no income or social security taxes, needs no workman's comp or health insurance was worth buying at $10.50 an hour What is it's value at $15.00/hour?
And another thing. The one percent did not steal our wealth. We gave it to them one Starbucks's coffee , one burger with fries, one lap top, one cell phone, one Xbox, one loaded automobile, one gallon of gas etc,at a time.

So in your world, it is impossible to EARN a high salary, one hour, one good (educated) decision or technical labor performance at a time? But a guy flipping burgers, he really EARNS his salary (until replaced by a robot, since McDonald's won't pay $15.00 an hour for flipping burgers ONE HOUR more than they have to -- whatever liberals may "demand" is fair).

So in your world, trading $X for a product is "giving" if one person has earned wealth and the other has not (by implication, given your post).

How quaint.

That is an odd take on what I said. My point was that the wealthy have provided us with things we happily bought and paid for and they have every right to accumulate the profits from that economic activity. It is not stolen from us and we are not oppressed. To confiscate a large portion of that wealth from them would be counter productive and reduce the quantity and variety of things we have available to consume with our earnings. If we as individuals want to be wealthy we must control spending and consumption so a portion of our wages can be saved and invested.

[Sixstrings]

I was watching morning joe on msnbc this morning, and Joe and Mika were talking about Trump again.

Joe Scarborough made the point that wages for white men have been sharply declining ever since 1974.

Trump's not for raising the minimum wage (maybe he'd flip on that one in the end, he recently said he wants a lot more education money spending), but the fact that even Republican base is economically suffering so much is why Trump fills stadiums and has all this support, "the man of the People" -- and he uses that very language, himself, it's quite unusual -- he said in the tv townhall last night "I have the People, I don't need Ted Cruz or anyone else."

Wages and employee benefits need to go up and get better, in the US. They're too low. That's the reality.

I don't know what this forum is sometimes, it's like you guys are all millionaires at the country club or something, having a beer before golf. Maybe you are, and God bless you, but at least pick up a newspaper or talk to the golf caddy or the pro shop clerk or bartender or janitor, to at least be aware of and find out what much of America is like and has been going through.

[vtsnowedin]

I was watching morning joe on msnbc this morning, and Joe and Mika were talking about Trump again.

Joe Scarborough made the point that wages for white men have been sharply declining ever since 1974.

He's not for raising the minimum wage (maybe he'd flip on that one in the end, he recently said he wants a lot more education money spending), but the fact that even Republican base is economically suffering so much is why Donald Trump fills stadiums and has all this support, "the man of the People" -- and he uses that very language, himself, it's quite unusual -- he said in the tv townhall last night "I have the People, I don't need Ted Cruz or anyone else."

Wages need to go up. They're too low. That's the reality.

I don't know what this forum is sometimes, it's like you guys are all millionaires at the country club or something, having a beer before golf. Maybe you are, and God bless you, but at least pick up a newspaper or talk to the golf caddy or pro shop clerk or bartender or janitor, to at least be aware of and find out what real America is like and has been going through.

Yes Six, I remember 1974. You could buy a new car for $3500 and the minimum wage was $2.30. Then in 1976 this disaster happened. (Jimmy Carter) and its been downhill ever sense.

[SeaGypsy]

The reason people keep arguing with you 6, is not that we are all rich (by world standards we are), but because you don't ever seem to get it for even a second, the USA is not a planet, it lives on one, & it relies on disproportionate resource allocation from outside it's borders to a very large extent. This means your country is both inextricably tied to global markets & dependent on tooth & nail competition to maintain the inequity. How you think this can happen while magically doubling minimum wage is simply not logical.

$1 an hour is a very good wage in many of your competing economies, up from $2 a day a couple of decades ago. As I detailed up thread, there is not a massive difference in cost of living to warrant this massive difference in labour cost, if that's what you are thinking. The issue is global & structural & your recipe enacted in simple terms would simply be inflationary - of no net benefit to the people you want to help.

The harsh reality is that manufacturing economies are heading inexorably toward wage equity, with the weighted balance favouring those at the lower cost end of the spectrum.

The only thing the US can do to improve living standards is reducing reliance on imports. It cannot compete on labour costs. The only thing the individual can do is improve their own position, through career planning, study, hard work, dedication, staying out of debt, being judicious about spending & saving. There ain't no magical solution to 'lift up America'- (make America Great again- just an empty slogan, a sales pitch, in dry reality).

[Sixstrings]

Yes Six, I remember 1974. You could buy a new car for $3500 and the minimum wage was $2.30.

If you compare that minimum wage of $2.30 to the cost of a new car at $3,500, doing some napkin pen and paper math that kind of ratio works out to the minimum wage ought to be $15 today.

Which is what California just passed (stepped up over six years) and New York will probably be next. So why is everyone in this thread against it. It's just making things a bit more like they were in the past, what's so bad about that.

That's the whole theme of this current campaign season, "make America great again," because people feel like they've slid back too far and things were better in the past, for the working and middle class.

In 1974 they had the equivalent of a $15 minimum wage. And to boot, there were a lot of good jobs -- I know my grandfather worked in a factory all his life. He had a great pension. Good wages, enough to have investments and he died a millionaire (he lived to a hundred years old and spent wisely, came up out of the great depression). He did a lot and raised a family, all on a union factory wage.

In 1974, there was no such thing as $40,000 in student loans just to go to culinary school for a $12 an hour cook job after.

There weren't all these student loans at all, folk just maybe had a part time job and the state governments paid almost all the funding for the state unis.

When I went to college in the 90s, it was still affordable like that. I just worked and paid my own way through.

Now it's not like that anymore, kids these days can't just get a job and pay a minimal cost for college -- massive banker student loans are the norm and expected. That's the reality, and it was Republican / corporatist democrat policy that did that and it wasn't good for people.

Sorry I'm worked up by the way, I get going when I'm having my coffee and hear Joe Scarborough saying the same things I do.

Then in 1976 this disaster happened. (Jimmy Carter) and its been downhill ever sense.

To be objective and fair, wages and benefits were better up into the Carter admin BUT.. during his term, and Ford before him and Nixon, actually inflation was high and there were problems from high wages.

The US needed a BIT of Reaganism. And UK had the same situation, they needed a BIT of Thatcherism.

But in the US, it went too far thereafter.

So, inflation is the only concern about having a working and middle class doing really well. But that's not the situation right now. We're too far on the other side of the spectrum at the moment, with the 1% having too much.

The only thing I would try to get across to conservatives in this thread, is just that you don't have to be ALL FOR the banks and hedge fund class all the time. There could be a 1974 equivalent minimum wage and it would be okay and that is not "socialism."

We had conservatives back in 1974, too. Folk making $15 an hour doesn't somehow mean there can't be Republicans anymore.

I mean seriously, there's lots of things to be conservative about, while still being for working and middle class people. One can be conservative about national security, illegal immigration, and keeping crime down, and anti drugs -- there's been a meth and pain pill crisis going on for twenty years now, and now we've got a heroin crisis.

One can be conservative about social things where the left goes too far -- the safe spaces crazyness and too much PC, etc.

One can be conservative about taxes -- but if you're working or middle or upper middle class then *don't be so much against taxing the 1% a bit, trust me they have the money they could pay a bit more taxes*. And honestly, if a conservative cares about the national debt and deficit then a big part of that problem is that the 1% does not pay enough taxes. Back when they used to, decades ago, the deficit wasn't so bad.

It's just math, you can't have a global military and run a country and build bridges and roads and have nice looking towns and cities while not taxing the super rich at all, it's just math folks.

Something like minimum wage is not even "welfare." It's wages, for WORK. I can understand conservatives being against welfare, but not jobs and wages. It's just not responsible to run a country without enough jobs, and wages for those jobs. That's basic stuff there, folk need jobs and they need wages.

[SeaGypsy]

Read my post 6? Too complicated for you? No wonder people tire of your rambling. Whatever doesn't sit with your unicorn theory you just ignore or go off on a strawman tangent.

[Sixstrings]

Read my post 6? Too complicated for you? No wonder people tire of your rambling. Whatever doesn't sit with your unicorn theory you just ignore or go off on a strawman tangent.

Yikes, give me a minute.

I'm tryin' to drink my coffee over here.

[Sixstrings]

The reason people keep arguing with you 6, is not that we are all rich (by world standards we are), but because you don't ever seem to get it for even a second, the USA is not a planet, it lives on one, & it relies on disproportionate resource allocation from outside it's borders to a very large extent. This means your country is both inextricably tied to global markets & dependent on tooth & nail competition to maintain the inequity. How you think this can happen while magically doubling minimum wage is simply not logical.

Yes I know all that, it's a globalist world.

And that's where conservatives' old arguments break down -- at least to American ears, and people that think a bit -- BECAUSE it's a global context. Usually they've always said "you can't tax the rich too much, because it's the rich that create jobs."

But the problem for the last thirty years is that the jobs are more often created in India, Mexico and South America. The American 1% have become GLOBAL and not so much connected to "America" the place.

So yeah SG, I fully understand and get that and yes there are benefits to globalism. I enjoy being able to buy a smartphone for just a hundred bucks. Or a good computer, for $400 bucks. There are benefits to globalism, yes.

But I bet Australians -- that have a $15 minimum wage -- still have access to those cheap imports too, so why can't we swing the same kind of policies here in the US?

The funny thing about talking to you, about domestic US policy, is that you're Australian and I'm just arguing for Australian type policies over here.

You can criticize a $15 minimum wage all you want to, but California just passed it. That's one of the largest states. It's got cities and rural areas and everything in between. So it's done, that's the reality now. If California and New York state can do it, then the other 48 states could too.

AND IT IS SIMPLY how things used to be, see Vts's 1974 example and the cost of a new car compared to what the minimum wage was. That same ratio would equal $15 minimum wage, now.

I'm not arguing for a $70,000 minimum wage, just what it should be, $15. Ideally pegged to inflation (like Australia does), but one can't expect that much in the US.

The smart thing the "fight for $15" crowd did, was that they were SPECIFIC. They put a number on it. Fifteen dollars.

$1 an hour is a very good wage in many of your competing economies, up from $2 a day a couple of decades ago.

Would you be in favor of nixing the $15 minimum wage (or did you say it was $19) in Australia? Seriously SG, one has to watch conservatives -- they really will roll it all back, whether we're talking about UK or Australia or US or Canada. If you let them, they'll roll it all back.

The harsh reality is that manufacturing economies are heading inexorably toward wage equity, with the weighted balance favouring those at the lower cost end of the spectrum.

Well, another reality is that we have democracy in the USA. 50 state governments, municipalities and a federal government.

Whatever it is you say the global realities are, the voters in California support $15 min wage and it just passed. So that's gonna be the law.

And it's not even a big deal. $15 is just what it should be.. we are in fact a first world nation and still the #1 economy. Europeans and French and such have a thousand times more benefits, a little $15 minimum wage in the US is reasonable and doable.

P.S. A funny thing about this forum is that it's international, and I happen to know how things are in other first world nations. Because I'm talking to Aussies and kiwis and Brits, I often drag in those examples.

What's sad though is that most Americans ARE NOT aware of how Australia does some things, or France, etc. They don't realize these things are possible. That college does not have to cost a hundred thousand dollars. That everyone could have healthcare.

I know all the complexities of these arguments and that the USA is never going to be France and maybe we don't want it to be, but we do need to keep up with the rest of the first world in some kind of middle ground at least.

[C8]

Wages and employee benefits need to go up and get better, in the US. They're too low. That's the reality.

I don't know what this forum is sometimes, it's like you guys are all millionaires at the country club or something, having a beer before golf. Maybe you are, and God bless you, but at least pick up a newspaper or talk to the golf caddy or the pro shop clerk or bartender or janitor, to at least be aware of and find out what much of America is like and has been going through.

SS: (an unfortunate set of initials)

I totally get the suffering of average folks. For the record, I am a economic conservative but social liberal- but on this stuff I can tell you that your $15 solution IS NOT CONSERVATIVE by any stretch.

We economic conservatives have a BETTER solution than more govt. control of the market: reduce the govt. control over housing that already exists.

Look it up SS- nothing is killing folks more than rising housing costs. The reason for this is runaway regulation of new developments in high density areas- its almost impossible to build any low income housing in LA, SF, NYC or many other places. We have given NIMBYs almost total power in many parts of the nation (an Blue States are the WORST on this issue). You cannot have open borders, mass pop increase and restricted housing- you can well raise the wage to $100 and it won't work. Every wage increase will go into bidding up limited housing. $15 an hour is like a giant cash transfer to landlords.

Capitalism is hogtied in housing.

[Sixstrings]

SS: (an unfortunate set of initials)

So what's that supposed to mean, it's fascist to just think the minimum wage ought to be the 1974 equivalent? If you want to talk about fascism, it's Trump that gives a lot of those vibes (I don't really think he is, but it's been too close for comfort and I have spoken out a LOT about that).

What the Republican Party really needed was for Jeb Bush types to just suck it up and raise the darn minimum wage and do some real things on healthcare and college costs / loans.

SO THAT WE DON'T GET crazy populists -- or fascists or communists or socialists -- getting elected. I'm establishment, but I'm reasonable. I believe you have to do something for the poor and not let it get too bad, so that they DON'T go out and start voting and start putting in Hugo Chavez types.

I totally get the suffering of average folks. For the record, I am a economic conservative but social liberal- but on this stuff I can tell you that your $15 solution IS NOT CONSERVATIVE by any stretch.

Well it's gonna be the law in Cali and probably New York next, so it's a done thing. It's a trend. I've been talking about it for a year now. I turned out right about it, and I'm glad the "fight for $15" people are succeeding. And a lot of upper middle class and millionaires deserve credit too, they support it as a moral issue.

And even upper middle class are affected by this. Let's get real here folks, do you yourselves or do you not know people that have their twentysomethings still living at home? Making maybe twelve bucks an hour, and they can't ever move out of the house.

They need $15 an hour, at least. And then they could move out of the darn house and start an independent life and we don't need to have a lost generation.

Look it up SS- nothing is killing folks more than rising housing costs.

Get more living wages to more people, and then they wouldn't be dysfunctionally poor so much, and they could get mortgages and become taxpayers too.

I like the minimum wage issue. It's not "welfare." It's not public housing. It's wages for WORK. It requires people to go out and get a job, and then they get a wage for that job, that seems conservative to me.

The only people I'd sympathize with are small business owners, that have a tight bottom line and of course they're worried about paying $15 an hour for their employees. If it were up to me, I'd do mandated higher wages for CORPORATIONS and then a lower minimum wage for SMALL BUSINESS. Therefore favoring small business, which is a good idea anyway -- but the corporations would never allow that.

Look folks, it's gonna be okay.. $15 minimum wage is not the end of the world. It'll be okay for small business too, what winds up happening is that their labor cost goes up *but they also they get more customers* with more money to spend.

As for real estate -- we already had a crash on that, and now we're into the start of the 30 year upswing cycle. So that one is what it is, as a homeowner I'm glad it's on the upswing. I lost money in the crash. I'm not keen to lose more money in home equity, just to get housing costs down or something. I'd rather pay an extra fifty cents for my pancakes at Dennys, and that server have a living wage.

The reason for this is runaway regulation of new developments in high density areas- its almost impossible to build any low income housing in LA, SF, NYC or many other places. We have given NIMBYs almost total power in many parts of the nation (an Blue States are the WORST on this issue). You cannot have open borders, mass pop increase and restricted housing- you can well raise the wage to $100 and it won't work. Every wage increase will go into bidding up limited housing. $15 an hour is like a giant cash transfer to landlords.

You raise good points. But fifteen dollars an hour is still better than twelve.

But okay let's say you're right, that it would amount to a wealth transfer to property owners -- well then everybody should be for it, it would raise our property values.

C8, I'm just like a "small c" conservative and I don't like things changing and the gov stopping doing something they used to always do, and all I know is that they used to raise the minimum wage every seven years or so. And then I know, that they stopped doing that (federal level) like 16 years ago or something.

I fully support it going to $15.

I KNOW PEOPLE that need that wage. I support it, I wouldn't vote to pay more sales tax or state income tax or more property tax or higher federal taxes, but I don't mind paying another fifty cents for pancakes at Dennys so they can pay the server a $15 minimum wage.

Capitalism is hogtied in housing.

True, and housing is a separate issue. Again, real estate is now on the 30 year historical upswing cycle.. so why do you think there won't be more built?

It will get built, then crash again thirty years from now, then recover and do the next cycle.

I think you're just trying to make a general "anti minimum wage" argument, like libertarian laissez faire total free market Dubai / Hong Kong type economy. Well, America was like that in the 1800s and early 1900s, but it's not like that now and most people don't want it to be.

[Sixstrings]

I don't like to argue about all this so much and get into deep philosophy, they just haven't raised the darn minimum wage for sixteen years or something and it's past time they did, it's simple as that.

All I can say is look folks, I have family and some people I know that work for less than $15 an hour and they really do need that more livable wage.

Maybe some of you conservatives actually live in blue states. And there's not so much poverty. Well, I live in a red state and it's one of the highest levels of income disparity. There's poor people all over the place, in my town.

It didn't used to be that way, it's gone downhill over the years. Maybe it was NAFTA that did it. Maybe it was Republican / corporate democrat type federal polices. And, my state going big time tea party and now it's like 3rd world around here.

I don't know what the blame is, but while I'm not in dire poverty and don't work for minimum wage.. all I know is that in my state and community it really does need to be $15 an hour, and I'll just have to respectfully disagree with those of you that are against it.

I'm glad California did this, it moves the issue forward, next up will probably be New York state. And then finally, congress will probably do $12 an hour.

I HONESTLY, genuinely, believe this would be good for the real economy GDP growth and it's good for everybody, even millionaires and billionaires. There are many phd economists that say the same thing. And it just makes common sense to me.

What more can I say, I'm old enough to remember that there always used to be a minimum wage and they always used to raise it about every seven years, so I just think that's how it should continue to be. (the ideal would be to set it, then peg it to inflation and then we don't have to deal with this issue again)

A Major Leap for the Minimum Wage

When it began a few years ago, the campaign for a $15 minimum hourly minimum wage seemed little more than a populist pipe dream. ...

That goal looks much different now, as two of the nation’s largest states are poised to write $15 minimum wages into law within the span of a week. Both California and New York would phase in their increases over several years, but simply enshrining a path to $15 marks a rapid advance that has surprised liberal activists and economists alike.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/a-major-leap-for-the-minimum-wage/475920/

[vtsnowedin]

Students were borrowing money to go to college in 1974. all $2000 per year of it. I did not because I had $1400 in the bank from raising dairy cattle while in high school and won a couple of small scholarships and grants. My second (two year school) year I commuted from home so the bill was only $800.
Yes Ford tried to whip inflation but the Democratic controlled congress thwarted his efforts. Under Carter it got up around 15% a year while I was getting cost of living raises of five to nine percent.
To my mind Reagan's deficit for defense spending was just as wrong as Carters deficit for welfare programs.

[Shaved Monkey]

This is in the Australian paper today.
It has a good graph comparing OECD minimum wages over time.

Unions call for $30 increase in weekly minimum wage

Australian Council of Trade Unions has asked for the full-time wage for adults to be increased from $656.90 to $686.90 per week.
That would raise the hourly rate from $17.29 to $18.08.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is proposing an increase in the minimum wage of no more than 1.2 per cent.
This would mean an increase of $7.90 per week, bringing the national minimum wage to $664.80 per week.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/workp ... ntslt.html